The Supreme Court on Friday declined an urgent hearing of a review petition filed by historian Romila Thapar in the case of the arrests of five ‘Urban Naxals’ for their alleged role in the Bhima Koregaon violence.

According to reports, Romila Thapar had filed a review petition seeking a review of the Supreme Court order of rejecting a SIT probe into the arrests of Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferriera, Sudha Bhardwaj, and Gautam Navlakha. The court rejected the plea and further permitted the Maharashtra Police to continue with the investigation.

The Supreme court headed by the then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on September 28 had refused to interfere with arrests of these five ‘Urban Naxals’ and had extended the interim house arrest of the activists. The apex court proceedings had ruled that ‘dissenting views expressed or difference in political ideology’ had nothing to do with the case.

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The apex court had ruled that the accused cannot have a say on how the police should investigate the case and had asked the arrested persons to move to the trial court with their appeals.

The Pune Police had conducted raids and arrested the five accused at the end of August. The arrested persons were accused of links with Maoists networks. The arrests were in relation to the Bhima Koregaon violence. Earlier, the Pune police had arrested Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut and Sudhir Dhavle in the case. The arrested persons in August raids had moved to the Supreme court and had obtained an order for house arrest instead of judicial custody.

In a recent development, the Pune police have now informed a special court in Pune that the accused in connection with the Elgaar Parishad case were in contact with Central Committee members of the banned CPI-Maoist, and they had discussed routing funds for Maoist activities through hawala transactions.

The Supreme Court's verdict is being seen as the second major embarrassment for both the Congress party and Prashant Bhushan, as the Supreme Court had earlier rejected a plea on the issue of a probe concerning the Rafale deal.

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